Calgary Transit is Canada’s fourth largest transit agency, connecting people and places by providing reliable, safe and courteous public transportation services.
Calgary Transit was struggling to train and sustain the workforce needed to operate and maintain its rapidly growing fleet and city expansion. Based on increased ridership, new vehicles, an aging workforce, and new technology, Calgary Transit needed to provide a relevant training program for the electro-vehicle mechanics responsible for maintaining the fleet of Siemen’s light rail vehicles (LRVs). With more than 8 million passengers per year, it was vital that all mechanics were comfortable with servicing all aspects of the entire fleet of LRVs.
Xpan became a valued partner to produce and implement the Calgary Transit Blended Electro Vehicle Mechanic Systems Training (CTBEST). CTBEST is a comprehensive blended learning program covering all LRV systems across the entire fleet. It is comprised of asynchronous immersive eLearning curriculum integrated with a relevant on-the-job curriculum, all hosted and deployed on Xpan’s Learning Management System (LMS). The eLearning curriculum is divided into system-based modules covering familiarization, maintenance tasks, troubleshooting and repair learning objectives. Each module has a quiz to check comprehension and provide remedial feedback, while each system has a final exam. In total, the question pools used for the final exams had over 11,000 questions. The content is brought to life using a variety of interactive media treatments such as 3D simulations and scenario-based learning to validate understanding and evaluate application level competency development. We used elements of blended learning to ensure learning proficiency by adding on-the-job training tasks for major vehicle systems.
Xpan’s blended program reduced the time required to train a fully qualified Electro Vehicle Mechanic (EVM) from 2 years to only 9 months. This resulted in a 63% faster certification of EVMs and provided superior retention to the training methods employed previously. The return on investment was CDN $1.9 mill in the first two years. The program has been active for over 15 years and continues to pay dividends with the savings in training costs and time. Xpan continues to maintain and support Calgary Transit’s CTBEST program and is proud of this partnership providing critical knowledge for our home town.
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